Chapter 44

AN: Ugh, fight scenes ahead. So much fight. But also, some non-fight moments!

Previously, on "From Academy To ANBU"…

"…What is your name?" He really didn't like where he was sensing it was going.

She hesitated, then steeled her gaze at him. All fear from before was gone.

"Queen Saara. And if you do not let me go, my people will see you hanged."

Naruto's heart stuttered. Impossible!

Present, with Naruto…

"Liar," he hissed. He was either being lied to or in a genjutsu. But everything felt solid, too real.

Add that to him messily spiking his off-kilter chakra and he doubted a genjutsu was responsible.

"You are a liar, girl." He channeled his captain for the last bit. "There is no Queen Saara, hasn't been well over a decade!"

Naruto ignored the puzzle piece that fit on what he smelled, felt, and heard. He ignored the steady heartbeat of the girl when she gave her identity.

"I'm not lying, you jerk!"

"What year is it?"

She looked at him as if he was insane as she said a year so off base it was ludicrous.

He squeezed her trachea in warning when her voice echoed. So, either the girl was again, a liar, he was in a genjutsu, or he had done the impossible.

Naruto filed the inaccurate year away and channeled chakra to his ears, and could hear muffled movement, though it did not get closer. That's when he noticed the distorted seals that adorned the entrance to the strange cavern.

"I've never seen barrier seals that complex," he muttered. Five clones materialized and moved to the markings. To let an unknown sealing matrix, go unchecked, would have been foolish. "It lets certain people in, but everyone can leave, while also dampening— but not silencing— the outside world."

The array, while above his skill, did not show signs of being overlayed, which meant it was unlikely to have a suicide activation under the barrier matrix.

Naruto turned back to the girl and let the clones copy the weave of ink, he would study it with Jiraiya-sama if he survived this mission.

"Hrmmthg" his prisoner tried to scream. His hand was still clamped on her jaw.

Naruto's ability— hampered as it was— did not sense dishonesty. In desperation he made the stupid move his captain had told him to use as a last resort: he stabbed a kunai in himself. He aimed for his non-dominant upper arm, where it would heal and not hinder an escape. His surroundings stayed the same. Not even a shift.

"Damn. Not a genjutsu."

The fake Saara stared at him in horror, and he stared back through his mask. Naruto had no idea what the hell that seal did to him, to his team, or how long he had been out. He attempted another connection to Kurama, but it was like a wall was in place. Chakra could seep through, but he didn't need his friend's chakra, he needed his wisdom.

"I have more questions. Will you scream?"

She shook her head no.

"How long was I out?"

She licked her lips in nervousness. "I-I found you a couple of hours ago, Shinobi-san."

He narrowed his eyes. "Did you tell anyone? Before you answer, know that I have asked for tips from a very skilled interrogator. He gave me… ideas."

Ibiki Morino had been ecstatic when Naruto's team had agreed to pull extra shifts to guard T&I before the exams and had graced the blond with a "beginner tips" as he had put it.

Naruto vowed to never use said tips unless he was truly desperate, and he was a fair bit from it with the civilian below him. She didn't need to know that, however.

"No! I didn't, I swear it!"

"Why?"
"Because Anrokuzan would have forbidden me from coming here again to sing to Mother's grave, and you looked like maybe one of my subjects or the other shinobi who were here…"

He sucked in a breath. His team was already here.

"Tell me everything."

Later...

Naruto walked with his hand stuck to Saara's back by chakra through the barrier and felt the energy it contained. It made him shiver by how potent it was.

"That's because the Ley Lines power it— like everything else in Loran," Saara said. "We've built up the city from a small desert oasis to a place of a thousand towers!"

His eyes narrowed at that revelation; his suspicions he dared not ponder looked to be likely. If so, he was playing with a lit explosive tag that was fueled by Bijuu chakra.

In other words, he could afford no mistakes.

"Hmm," he said instead. "Where were those shinobi, again?"

"They were in the West Sector when I was harvesting Ley Line leakage, shinobi-san, but remember, Anrokuzan will be very worried if I don't go to my daily viewing."

"I'll get you to Anrokuzan, believe it," he drawled absently. She would be a great distraction as he spied and potentially attacked the man whose description was familiar.

They turned several corridors, and Naruto could smell the desert sand mixed with chakra laced plant growth. Clones continuously popped as his scouts cleared the areas ahead.

"And the guards?" He sensed hardly any life, and none were up to protection detail standards, at least not close by. She fidgeted, and Naruto kept his posture neutral; either she didn't have guards, or they were able to mask themselves completely. Both scenarios complicated things for different reasons.

They reached an opening, where indeed many towers of impractical height rose from cobbled streets. Many of the buildings were connected by beams, and he narrowed his eyes at that.

Suddenly over a hundred puppets dropped from openings in the towers, and chaos broke out. The puppets were like Mukade's, but were sturdier, and moved in with many more blades than the man's had.

They also had turbines to fly, shaky as they were in the air.

His clones were popped, and the attack pattern was more precise than the last time he faced them. Naruto had to shunshin with Saara and found himself almost impaled by a puppet that shot out from a sliding window. Naruto cursed as two puppets from above interlocked their parts into a larger being and came down with a giant sword. He let his hand on Saara drop to brace his knife, his wind chakra screeching as it broke the puppet's sword.

He expected the girl to recognize the danger of the situation and stay by his side. She did not. Instead, she leapt into the arms of one of the creatures and disappeared in the horde.

Damn, he had been played. He had expected it, but not to a mass of puppets with no user in sight. The blond had calculated that Mukade, if he was there, would have appeared with his clay army; no life could be sensed by him.

Naruto slashed at strings and vaulted between buildings to get the higher ground; the puppets followed. How predictable.

He debated going after the girl, but his mission needed his team, that stupid fourth member, and Mukade. There was also the unpleasant possibility Baki was there in this not-Loran. The girl would tip off her advisor, but judging from the amount of chaos he was in, he doubted that capturing her again would have made a difference.

He slashed, cut, and stabbed the stupid chakra strings, but this time more would take their place. As he kept sealing the remains as quickly as he could he let an eye follow up to the beams that connected the buildings.

'There!' Those beams were actually what powered the puppets by sending endless replacement chakra lines.

If only his chains were allowed. Or would even materialize in a steady fashion, as nothing felt altogether right.

When there were ten more puppets below him, the ANBU in disguise cut their wires. He hoped this would work; sealing all of them was impossible.

Naruto ran through seals as he soared above the mass and sucked in a breath.

"Wind Style: Drilling Air Bullets!" Six powerful air projectiles burst forth and connected with his lifeless enemies, and shrapnel that took out other enemies was all that was left. Naruto landed horizontally towards the top of a spire. He perched and let ten clones spam to fight off the onslaught of enemies.

Several puppets tried to propel up, but their predictable pattern made it simple for even shadow clones to destroy them.

Naruto let his gaze sweep the city. 'Where are they? Where would I hide? Underground? Out of the city?'

He didn't trust what Saara claimed about where his team was and would at most let clones risk a trap for that reunion. He needed to escape.

'But where are the people,' He wondered. There was no life. He bet that Mukade, or someone like the man, supplied the puppet power, but a city needed people, human guards, and civilians.

Over a hundred more of the composite dolls burst out of more openings that opened in-sync. Naruto's eyes widened, and he prepared for a battle.

A man who wore an almost identical mask to his appeared to his left as the puppets converged. Naruto felt a hand over his torso. He tried to shunshin away but found he couldn't access his chakra. Panic bloomed.

"I'm a friend," the fellow masked man said and a knife that could have been his knife's twin did a frenzy of slices so fast he couldn't track them. Puppets collapsed on themselves and fell from the sky and were eaten by Aburame bugs. His mind raced; they had one other member according to the report, not two!

He felt himself gripped tighter and the familiar sensation of second-hand shunshin, only it was too smooth even for a master of the technique.

When his surroundings stopped moving, he discovered they were underground again, with high level security seals that hid them in an alcove. Hints of the afternoon sun peaked through vents, high above.

This was bad. Naruto knew that he was outclassed, and that the seamless way the man had pulled off the sealing, the shunshin, and the security measures spoke of one like Dragon-sama or Jiraiya-sama.

Someone who could be a kage. There was a missing piece to the man, but Naruto knew that he stood absolutely no chance in a fight, and even his underhanded methods would have been put to the test.

He tsked at the blond hair on the man that tingled at the back of his mind. Right now, he had to determine if this was another enemy or a "friend" like the man had claimed. For his part, the older owlish masked man put off an amused vibe that Naruto didn't quite buy, even when he crouched to be at eye-level.

"Authorization?"

The man tilted his head. "S-1-2-One." This was the code the fourth member would have had, as the person who started the mission. Back-ups like Naruto had a secondary code.

"State your authorization," the older blond ordered back.

Naruto blinked but complied. "S-1-4-Two."

That was the code they had to give to their fourth member. He really hoped this strange, almost kage-level man hadn't tortured the pre-code from the actual final member.

The man tilted his head. "Why would Sarutobi-sama send back-up? Seems excessive," he mused. "I didn't even request one."

Naruto stiffened.

"The Third didn't," he said. Apparently, they were not in the know about their Hokage's current situation. "Who are you?"

Two others materialized around Naruto, an Aburame in poor disguise, and an equally poorly disguised Akimichi. He pondered why they even bothered to use the masks of Konoha's scapegoat group.

"You should know as a fellow shinobi that to reveal our identity is forbidden, kid," the Akimichi said. Naruto felt he knew that voice, if only faintly.

"And you should know that binding an ally's chakra in a hostile zone is considered friendly aggression!"

"If Sarutobi-sama didn't send you, who did," the other blond interrupted any budding argument. Naruto said nothing, not sure how much he should give away. Near identical masks stared each other down until Naruto gave in. His orders by his captain did say he could show his fourth member— or in this case, fourth squad— his identity.

He lifted his mask to reveal his face. Gasps were heard from the Akimichi and Aburame, but the older blond stilled. With a fluid motion the man lifted his mask to reveal a Konoha headband and a face Naruto had etched in his mind.

"Y-you. You're my—"

He cut himself off in time from revealing not only an S-class secret, but an S-class secret to either an impostor or…

"What year is it, really?" He asked.

The man gave the same year as not-Saara.

Shit. The likelihood of the two groups having coordinated the year to when Kakashi-senpai had said his team had taken the mission was highly unlikely given how classified it had been. Even if the group had spoken to Saara rather than give a brisk order to hide like she said, to match the year so instinctively was ludicrous.

He really was back in time. The reality hit him like a boss summons, and he mentally worked out how good or bad this could be.

On the one hand he could do something that would alter his timeline to where he was never born. To never exist would suck, Naruto admitted.

But on the other hand, he could warn his dad— for obviously the man was Minato Namikaze with the seals and speed— and prevent himself from growing up an orphan. His mind flashed to memories of his lonely apartment and constant need to know if he had been abandoned.

It was worth the risk, Naruto decided.

"Hey guys, I'll need some privacy with our unexpected friend here," Minato said lightly. The pair stiffened but left, and the two blonds were alone again.

Now was his chance. He opened his mouth to tell his father everything, but instead said "You can call me Three."

Minato smiled.

"Hello, three. My name's—"

"Minato Namikaze" Naruto interrupted. "You were the Fourth Hokage. The likely Fifth Hokage sent me and my team. We were to meet up with a fourth member to kill Mukade and destroy the ley line access point. I can't tell you my name or—"

"Or how I'll likely die," Minato stopped his ramble and raised an eyebrow at him. That wasn't what Naruto had been about to say, but that was on the long, long list of topics that were going to be taboo.

Naruto fidgeted, something he had only done when Iruka had stared him down, or when Dragon-sama scrutinized a report.

"No…"

"It's for the best," Minato mused. "The future happens for a reason, and you being here from the future does not mean we should alter it. The consequences could be dire."

Naruto wanted to protest but held his tounge; his father was right, and that same duty stopped him from hugging the man.

"That was the Hirashin, wasn't it? That you used to get us out of there?"

Minato quirked an eyebrow but nodded.

"Got it…Have you seen my team?" It was a quiet question, and Naruto focused on completing the mission, rather than the longing that gripped him.

Minato nodded. "I have seen a man that looks suspiciously like a student of mine, though he disappeared into another cavern last night."

So, Naruto had been asleep from the previous evening to the early afternoon at least.

"I'm going to remove the seal now. Please don't attack," Minato teased. If only he knew how unlikely that was from anybody in Naruto's time.

"There… should be another," he said vaguely as his chakra bloomed back, like he took off a too-tight sweater.

When Minato sighed, Naruto pushed the fear away. This mission was now a proper S-class one, and he planned to figure out how Dragon-sama knew to send him afterwards. Because Naruto felt that he would survive it now. He had his dad with him, even if they didn't acknowledge it.

Naruto wondered if this is what other kids felt.

The pair stared again. Then, Minato put his mask back and produced a map of the city. On the top right the date jeered at him.

"I haven't seen anyone yet, but it is a huge city, and we haven't explored the north or northeast. My mission is much less… covert than yours, I can tell; we're pretending to be rogue Konoha-nins who joined the militia group. We're investigating the spike in Ley Line usage and the mysterious advisor who took over. If need be, we're to seal up the access point. I take it I did indeed seal it?"

Naruto adjusted his mask back as he nodded and went into mission mode.

"Mukade is the man my team is tracking, and our orders were to destroy it after he accessed the Ley Lines— as you can tell, he did. He broke your seal and somehow that led us to the past."

"And the puppets— you've fought them before?"

"In my time, yes. I would bet a ton of ramen on Anrokuzan the advisor being the missing-nin Mukade."

Minato raised an eyebrow, and his gaze turned calculating.

"Are you fit to fight?"

"I am… adequate. The displacement made some of my abilities impossible, but I wouldn't have used them anyway."

"Well then, Three— we need a plan."

With Tenzo…

Tenzo decided that he and his team deserved a vacation after this. Yes, while he carried an unconscious but tiny Kakashi-senpai through caverns of traps, Tenzo knew he really should have asked more questions.

Like why the Fifth Hokage sent his team to the past, where he had to knock out a bratty past version of his friend and slowly bleed out from said brat's devious kunai tricks.

'Time to find my team and the Ley Line— it's our only way out of here, I suspect."

His real regret, though, was that Baki, the Suna Jonin and acting Kazekage according to intelligence, was not confirmed dead. Either the man had been left behind in the future, was skulking through the past with Mukade, or died in the explosion.

Tenzo doubted it was the last one.

With several more hallways and dozens of traps later, he arrived at a cavern and saw where the people of Loran went.

They had been turned into slaves.

Back with Naruto…

Naruto watched from a spire, Saara's "daily viewing" as she called it; the girl looked like a puppet herself, as she waved down at cheering masses. Garish decorations and parade music looped. He narrowed his eyes at the crowd; a clone had confirmed for him that not a single human was in the mix; it was all inorganic.

'What's the point of keeping that charade up,' he thought, but then it clicked. 'They need the girl for her ability; without her Mukade can't access the Ley Lines for his army.'

That was his conclusion, until a very overfed Mukade with facial hair activated a seal. The balcony crumbled away and Saara plummeted towards her death, an ear-piercing scream her companion the way down.

Naruto wasted no time, he spring-boarded from his hidden alcove in the spire, quick to snatch her from the air. Her eyes were blown open and she stared, slack jawed.

Then she started to struggle, and only his training kept him from dropping her, even as he vaulted between towers towards the ground. His temporary team moved in on a mass of puppets that had formed together into a chimera-like creature near the destroyed alcove.

The chakra fueling it was purple as it pulsated with each movement. It was foul, the Ley Lines twisting it to its will. Mukade, who had stared in puzzlement as Naruto foiled his plan, turned murderous.

"I'm not your attacker, so stop struggling" he demanded as he finally made it to the ground. She didn't listen and tried to bite him.

"Anrokuzan, HELP!"

Obviously, the man hadn't heard her, caught in his fight, but still she screamed.

"Okay, that's it," he muttered, and knocked her out. He kept to the shadows the buildings cast and made his way to a drainpipe. According to clone memory it would lead to a passageway he could loop through back to Minato's base camp. There he could store the girl from danger and help his team— both of them.

When he dropped down, Naruto came across the reason no people had been in Loran's towers: they had been hiding beneath them.

"My name is Masako, I'm the leader of the resistance" a tall, non-descript woman introduced herself to him and a barely awake but glaring Saara.

"You're the ones that tried to kill me," the princess accused. For her part Masako didn't flinch.

"No, that was your advisor, Anrokuzan."

"You're lying! Anrokuzan is like a father, and he brought Loran to prosperity! You thugs want to drag us back into the past."

Oh, the irony of that statement, Naruto noted. He said nothing, and Minato appeared next to him in the makeshift meeting room, a slight flash fading. Naruto smiled behind his own mask, and his hand gripped the pronged kunai attached to his hip.

He finally had one of his dad's kunai, and the man had given it to him, himself. Naruto didn't know all the emotions that had risen when he had been casually passed one.

"The fused puppet tunneled underground," Minato said, drawing him back to the conversation. The room gasped, which proved the rebels had been spying. "We will need to evacuate your people, Saara-sama. It's going to get messy."

"I won't leave Loran," she insisted. To Naruto's surprise, the rebels voiced her sentiment.

"Then I think it's time you learn the truth, Queen Saara," Masako said.

Thirty minutes later Saara had cried herself out on Naruto's shoulder, as she saw the puppet Loran.

"I was so stupid," she hiccupped. "He killed Mother, didn't he?"

"Probably," Naruto said. The background on Queen Seramu hadn't interested him before he arrived in a time not his own. "But will you let him kill you, too? And your subjects?"

She shot up and glared into his mask. He had sparked something, clearly. "No. I will not."

Loran's people, a few of which he spotted similarities that spoke of lineage to the remnants in his era, gathered around. Their hope was palatable. They weren't as emboldened when Minato had promised that he would protect them.

Of course, they weren't. They were Loranians, a proud people who answered only their queen.

And their queen was ready for battle.

"Anrokuzan is unstoppable as long as he has access to the Ley Lines, but I can halt his access. I need to get to the mines— they're abandoned, and the chamber is near it."

"Do you know where it is," Shibi asked, "I understand that Anrokuzan has shifted many things about how the city is structured."

She smirked. Oh, Naruto recognized that smirk, had seen it years in the future.

"What kind of queen would I be if I couldn't find the chamber I was born in?"

Naruto and Saara ran through a path she apparently had used since toddlerhood to sneak down to the chambers. She admitted she hadn't used it since her mother had died, but no alterations or traps greeted them. Naruto felt his hackles raise at that suspicious good fortune.

As they did their part, Minato's team had continued their mission of setting up Loran to fall; bombs were armed, puppets were taken out, and chakra blocking seals were placed on as many beams as possible. The Loran rebels had joined them. The man had promised to find him after their part was done, but the split up spoke of trouble likely to follow.

He wished his father had stayed by his side, but Naruto knew; the mission came first.

"We're almost there," she whispered in his ear, and a clone memory of ahead flooded his mind.

"Shit" he cursed. The chimera puppet barreled through, and he pivoted to turn back the way they came, only to meet with another one. They looked like centipedes, scorpions, and humans jumbled into one.

Naruto would attest that Shukaku was less repulsive looking.

"Hold on," he ordered as twenty clones dashed out in a star formation. Following a pattern that he had drilled hundreds of times, each clone funneled chakra through their construct blades, acting as human sized projectiles. The puppets seemed to screech as they were struck.

Naruto didn't wait, as soon as the first wave dispelled another wave was made. One clone made it through under a puppet leg and up the wall, to which Naruto used kawarimi on, followed by endless shunshins to the destroyed opening.

He scanned the supposed "abandoned" mine below as he leapt up to the ceiling. Signs of a slave camp were fresh, though someone had either moved or freed the captives. The slashed manicals spoke of the latter.

The chimeras emerged back to the mine and morphed together into one. He snarled at the situation and knew he had to get Saara, who trembled on his back, to the Ley Line chamber.

He jumped over a scorpion tail that shot towards him with a blade and tore into it with his chakra. He sealed it into a scroll and settled for a long fight of cutting and sealing.

'You can do this. Your regular chakra isn't even that tired, and wind and water jutsu are effective.'

Naruto groaned at the loss of his great plan when the creature pulsed and drew chunks of metal to form into a new tail.

"Hahahahaha" an echoing laugh came from another entrance. Mukade looked gleeful as he slow clapped. "I wasn't sure you had arrived back with me, seeing as how late you were. But I'm so happy you're here! I wouldn't want to let you go unrewarded for your help in my plans."

Mukade placed a hand on the side of the chimera and his eyes glinted. Naruto dropped Saara into the arms of a clone and shunshined to hit the missing-nin in the chest. It was killing blow, one Naruto had used several times in the past. But instead of choking up blood, Mukade grinned.

"Oooh, so painful," he mocked. Naruto twisted midair to strike with a wind powered kick, but the man was gone.

He leapt back to bat away several poisoned kunai that had sprung towards Saara. He looked to see where Mukade had transported himself to.

The chimera puppet raised itself up to tower over the pair, and he was already running through seals. "Wind Style: Drilling Air Bullets," he whispered before sucking in breath and releasing several air bullets. The puppet tilted off its balance.

"That did nothing," Saara whispered harshly.

Naruto ignored her, his theory confirmed: it wasn't steady.

The chest area above Naruto split open on the creature to reveal Mukade's distorted face, a manic grin on him.

"Behold! I'm invincible, you pest!" Here the man who was drunk on power show-boated by springing forth a dozen more appendages.

God, Naruto despised when shinobi got cocky in a fight, but in this case, it would benefit him. He flashed through three signs for a jutsu he had been working on, one Dragon-sama had shown him.

Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere was an uncommon B-rank jutsu that fired out needle like bursts of wind with more force than the drilling air bullets, and more numerous.

Its result wasn't as powerful as it could be when he combined Kurama's chakra but judging from the amount of clay and wooden limbs that toppled to the ground along with the main body of the puppet, he considered it a success.

Naruto darted through the wreckage and through the path that led to the chamber, a clone still carrying Saara.

"That won't do anything, he's connected to the Ley Lines."

"I know. We'll have to cut off his power supply."

He let a crisscross pattern of razor wire cover their escape. Chimera-Mukade had recovered quickly and barreled through the wires.

"You think such pitiful trap could stop me?"

The ANBU smirked; he had spent hours etching his favorite seal into the wire linkage, inch by inch.

Explosions engulfed the puppet, and Mukade's screams were music to Naruto's ears.

"That may slow him down," Saara admitted.

He adored explosion seals so, so much.

His captain had shown up with a tiny Kakashi-senpai Naruto did not snicker at, several turns later. The man had funneled with Naruto tons of earth chakra to cause a cave in.

"That should buy us some time," tiny Kakashi said to Tenzo. The kid's voice cracked more than Naruto's. "For a loser you're not so bad."

For some reason Kakashi sported a large bump on his head.

Tenzo just sighed at the kid's attitude and nodded towards Naruto.

"We're going to the Ley Lines. That creature was fused with our target. Our Fourth member is above. His team is sabotaging the terrain. I have not seen Two," the blond reported. "No signs of the other missing-nin."

Mukade rammed into the rocks, and the entire tunnel shook.

"The path is clear ahead. Queen Saara, make your way to the Ley Line chamber, we three will hold them off. Your people are freed and already there."

She nodded and ripped her dress to make it easier to move if needed. As she turned to be picked back up by the clone, Naruto grabbed her hand.

He didn't know why, but he felt it was right, as he gave her his back-up chakra blade.

"Just in case," he murmured. She grinned.

"You can count on me."

The fight had taken everything out of them and still the creature reformed. Naruto had managed enough demonic chakra to enhance his speed briefly and he had unleashed a rasangan that ripped Mukade in half.

But it kept reforming with its "Regeneration Jutsu".

Mini Kakashi held his own but took a hit while he protected Tenzo. Currently they ran with the kid passed out.

"This won't work, we need the other team," Naruto said while they ran. His trick of wire explosions worked once more, surprisingly, but he had run out after. Mukade just took chunks from the walls to reinforce himself.

"Do you have another Swamp of the underworld in you," Tenzo asked. Naruto shook his head; that jutsu had been taught to him by Jiraiya-sama but never mastered with how packed the months leading the invasion were. Add to that, Naruto hadn't even begun to learn earth manipulation, as he had to focus on water manipulation and furthering his wind. Only his insane reserves kept him from being unable to even perform it after everything else the mission had thrown at him.

"I hope this works," Naruto said.

He funneled chakra into the kunai, like Minato had told him to do only in emergencies. Naruto considered the puppet's inability to be destroyed an emergency.

Instantly the taller blond was in front of Naruto, Tenzo, and the still unconscious Kakashi. His eyes were murderous as one hand had a rasangan and the other a kunai. Naruto saw the reason every nation had a flee on sight order for the man in that moment.

Then he turned and grinned at the ANBU pair.

"I hope I'm not too late. We had to destroy as much of the connecting towers before the puppets could be released."

The pair just shook their heads.

Naruto couldn't hope to follow the streaks of the fight that followed, he was that outclassed. This was what made the gap between normal shinobi and Hokage. His clones popped, and another unpleasant memory of the mission washed over him.

"More puppets at the chamber door, and it's locked!"

Tenzo whipped his head to him even as he finished a seal and rose up an earth style wall to give Minato a respite. The man nodded gratefully at Tenzo.

"You go help Queen Saara, Three and I will handle this guy until you get access. Throw this when you're in."

Tenzo caught a kunai and left with Kakashi after enforcing the wall further.

As soon as his captain was cleared out, Naruto turned to his father, a Rasangan formed. Minato, his face masked having cracked somewhere, had his face bare, and it let Naruto see the impressed gleam.

"Clearly this jutsu has the best result," Naruto said. They barraged more attacks, and the siege seemed endless. Rasangan were effective, but the chip away was minimal when the monster could reform instantly.

Tenzo suddenly popped a clone off, the last one, and the memory of the Ley Line being shut down hit him after the Akimichi and Aburame shielded the civilians; now they just had to fight the residual of Mukade. Still difficult, but not impossible.

Naruto relayed the information, and formed another sphere.

"With our Rasangan, it takes longer for Anrokuzan to reform with it. I wonder…"

Minato's own Rasangan formed, and he held it close to Naruto's. The two spheres seemed drawn to one another.

"As I thought. When two people with complimentary chakra use the exact same jutsu, it can lead to a better effect. They synergize, so to speak." Wisps of wild chakra whipped around them.

Mukade broke the impressive display as he broke through again. Naruto and Minato nodded to each other, both having the same idea.

Naruto spammed clones that worked in loose groups of five for several ANBU team Ro attack patterns. His lower chakra meant they weren't as durable, but that wasn't the point.

The point was for them to tick off Mukade, and it worked beautifully. The man, who had been smug, turned livid and barreled recklessly forward without a thought as to why Minato smirked.

As they ran, Minato reformed his Rasangan, and Naruto let his own meet, this time the two merging, a tornado of chakra covering them. They leaped into the opening at the end of the tunnel.

"We'll get one shot at this," Minato said, and let Naruto take over the jutsu. The older blond raced out from the chakra and jumped up, calling a "Shuriken Shadow clone" to barrage Mukade that had grown several times larger.

"Pathetic! Regeneration Jutsu!" The man screamed, but the healing was greatly reduced.

Naruto ran with full speed, straight through the Chimera. The blast destroyed most of the outside chamber. Chunks of building and puppet ricocheted off everywhere. Scraps of shrapnel hit Naruto before Minato used a Hirashin to grab him and ferret him to safety.

"Here," Saara said, and offered him the blade back. He pushed it back to her.

"You keep it. Something tells me it will be needed more in your hands."

She smiled, and walked outside the chamber to wait with her people as they sealed off the power for good.

"Three," Minato called. "I'll need a second set of eyes on this, mind helping me out?"

Naruto felt his heart stutter.

Just then his Kakashi showed up, hood torn and holding the severed head of Baki.

"Yo, hope I'm not too late?"

Tenzo and Naruto just shook their heads.

Finally...

Naruto and Minato high-fived as they placed the sealing matrix. His dad had shown him the inscriptions, and their combined chakra made the intricate pattern that looked different than what he had seen in the future.

"And when I first did an overlay seal, Kushi-chan spilt ramen over it," Minato laughed. "You should have seen the devastation on the training field."

Naruto joined in. Placing the modified version of the seal would have taken the older male less than a minute, but instead he took the time to show Naruto the basics on it while spilling idle tales of past mishaps.

The moment sobered up as Minato drove the kunai in. Soon, everything started to turn white.

The three ANBU glanced at their bodies that glowed. Naruto felt a slight swell of panic.

"Don't worry," Minato said and smiled. "With Anrokuzan dead, the line deactivated, and the sealing re-applied, the pendulum of time is going back. When you arrive to your tie the resulting energy pulse should be enough to destroy the Ley Line's gathering point completely, completing your mission."

Kakashi tilted his head while ignoring the piercing gaze of the younger him. It looked like they had a private conversation while Naruto had worked on the seal array.

"So that's why we were sent back, because the only way to destroy it—"

"Would be by a ripple effect of usage. Exactly."

"What now? I-I" Naruto wanted to finally blurt out the secret of Minato's death. The urge to change the future hit him.

"We do not want to change the past. After you are gone, I will apply a memory jutsu, erasing everything that had to do with your squad," he said in a firm tone. Both younger and older Kakashi stiffened.

"But Sensei!"

"But Sir!"

"No, Kakashi." A piercing gaze met them all and they deflated. Tenzo kept himself quiet, as he agreed with the former Hokage. "This is for the best," he added quietly.

"I, I want to say, that even if you don't remember—" Naruto cut himself off.

Minato smiled warmly and lowered himself to eye-level.

"Know this: If I had a son, I'd be proud if he was just like you," he said and hugged him.

The world went white then, and Naruto tried to shout. When everything settled, they were in the destroyed Ley Line chamber.

Only it was back to his time.

End!

So, hope that was an acceptable adaptation of the movie, while sticking to my version of how things would go down. Let me know your thoughts! And thank you to the new reader that commented their whole way through the chapters! It was great reading your reviews and thoughts.

A few things:

I never liked that Minato would erase Naruto's memories, as it wouldn't make sense as they were past his death. The only thing I could think of would be that Minato wasn't sure he was dead yet? But eh, movie logic. I changed that to where he was a genius like in cannon and deduced that he had already passed, thus making Naruto forget details on his mission kinda moot. Plus, I love the bonding moments in the movie and wanted to keep them lol.

We'll have more on why Shisui knew to send Naruto, eventually, and next chapter we'll go into detail why Kurama wasn't there… I totally didn't write a lame excuse why he wasn't in order to make Naruto interact more with other characters and stand up on his own two feet. Absolutely not.

Now that we're over this hump of a movie, we have some important scenes with Itachi, the Hokage, and Shisui coming up… so if you don't remember much from the past several chapters, I recommend a quick re-read.

Finally, I'm really grateful for all the support y'all had with me popping back up! I wasn't expecting so many people to have kept hoping for an update, and it warmed my heart.

I am cross-posting the edited chapters of ATA on AO3— we're up to chapter 2, with 3 coming up! Mostly the edits are grammar and minor plot points, but it is definitely a cleaner read!